Opinions shift toward gay marriage

WASHINGTON — Nearly two decades ago, when Bill Clinton was president, Tom Ridge was governor of Pennsylvania, and Charlie Dent was a legislator in Harrisburg, each believed marriage should be only between a man and woman.

With the Supreme Court to hear arguments over the constitutionality of that definition at the end of the month, Clinton now favors lifting the federal ban on gay marriage, Ridge has joined other Republicans against California's ban, and Dent, now a member of Congress, says he's "not sure" if he'd vote again to define marriage.

They are representative of a dramatic shift in opinion about gay marriage across the country. As recently as 2006 there was a concentrated effort to amend the U.S. Constitution to limit marriage to one man and one woman. Today, gay marriage is legal in nine states and the District of Columbia. Same-sex couples living there are eligible for state-level benefits but not federal ones because of the Defense of Marriage Act.

Pennsylvania passed a law in 1996 banning same-sex marriage and refusing to recognize those marriages from other states, taking its lead from the federal government, which passed the Defense of Marriage Act the same year. To put that period in context, it was a year before actress Ellen DeGeneres controversially came out as a lesbian personally and in television character.

Just 16 state representatives and five state senators voted against limiting the definition of marriage. Dent was among the majority that voted for it.

When pressed recently, Dent couldn't say where he stood on the marriage issue but left the door open. Asked if he would vote on a statewide ban again, he said, "I don't know. I'd have to think about it. It was the right thing to do at the time. Today, I'm not so sure."

He said that when he voted to define marriage in the mid-1990s, the country wasn't ready for gay marriage. That has changed, he said: "Now there is much more acceptance, especially from younger people."

In 2004, about one-third of Pennsylvanians said gay couples should be allowed to marry and have the same rights as heterosexual couples. Now, more than 50 percent support marriage equality, according to statewide Morning Call/Muhlenberg College polls.

A large part of the rising support for gay marriage is generational. While two-thirds of Pennsylvanians between 18 and 29 back marriage equality, slightly more than a third of people over 65 do.

Michael Rosenfeld, a sociology professor at Stanford University, described the shift in public opinion as "cohort replacement." In this case, the academic term relates to when older people, who grew up not knowing any gay people, die, they are replaced with people born after 1980 who have greater awareness of gay rights.

"As more people see people who are out, the stigma starts to fade. Once people see that gay rights can win elections, then the politicians stop being silent on the issue. Then you have someone like Barack Obama, probably the most famous person in the world, comes out and supports gay rights. He lends a tremendous amount of mainstream credibility to the issue," Rosenfeld said.

Obama announced his support for gay marriage in May. His administration directed the U.S. Justice Department not to defend the federal ban in court. The Democrats also made marriage equality part of their national party platform in 2012, and Obama became the first president to mention gay rights in an inaugural address.

When freshman U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, a Democrat, was running for the 17th District seat, he wasn't sure where he stood on gay marriage. So he met with a Lehigh Valley gay activist to help him develop a position.

Cartwright asked Adrian Shanker, president of Equality Pennsylvania, why there wasn't backlash from military servicemen and women when the government got rid of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that forced gays in the armed forces to keep their sexual orientation secret.

"Adrian said to me, 'Matt, don't you get it, everyone in the military is under 30,' " Cartwright recalled.

"You have to realize I'm 51 years old. When I was growing up, you didn't talk about things like that. It was a taboo subject. It isn't now," he said.

Cartwright is now among the 212 House Democrats urging the Supreme Court to strike down the federal law banning gay marriage.

Critics of gay marriage warn that if the Supreme Court overturns the Defense of Marriage Act, it would ignite a culture war akin to the anti-abortion movement that mobilized after the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that made abortions legal.

Supporters of gay marriage liken its prohibition to the "separate but equal" doctrine that enabled segregation. They say future generations will see marriage equality laws as righting a wrong, just as the civil rights movement did in the 1960s.